Lise Sparrow is a representative of the Justice and Witness Ministries of the Vermont United Church of Christ and of Vermont Interfaith Action.
BRATTLEBORO-This week, Brattleboro will bid farewell to Chief of Police Norma Hardy.
When she interviewed for the job in 2021, she spent the night at the Latchis Hotel and took some time to walk up and down Main Street, getting a feel for the town.
Hardy had been assistant chief of police for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was off duty when, on Sept. 11, 2001, the Twin Towers sent New York and the Port of New York and New Jersey into trauma and tragedy.
So she was not daunted when she saw “ACAB” (“all cops are bastards”) scribbled on wall after wall around town.
Having grown up in Brooklyn in the ’60s, Chief Hardy knows personally how unjust police could be. Seared into her mind is the memory of her mother being dragged to jail for peaceful protests during civil rights protests.
Such experiences forged the foundations of a life committed to public service. Working at the Port Authority also exposed her to drugs, guns, and violence, so she predicted that whatever drugs were present in Brattleboro, she’d be able to handle.
Beyond their lives in Brooklyn, Hardy and her family grew up loving the outdoors and fishing, so she came to Vermont, imagining forested places near Brattleboro where she could come and go peacefully from what would be a stressful job. Requiring a high energy person, focused and committed to excellence, this job seemed a good match.
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Brattleboro was, indeed, looking for strong leadership. The Community Equity Collaborative in town had been pushing for better training for the officers who serve the increasingly diverse town. With homelessness and fentanyl addiction on the rise, and after George Floyd’s death and the “defund the police” movement, the department was depleted and demoralized. The previous chief warned it could wear you down.
In July 2021, Hardy was sworn in as the new police chief, and she got right to work.
From the start, she became a visible presence in town, happy to chat on the street and welcoming to those who stopped by her office. As importantly, she began to build a new team of officers and hired social workers to deal with the mental health issues that often present themselves as officers respond to crises.
Now, almost five years later, the police department is almost fully staffed, with 27 of 30 officers in place and one in the pipeline.
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The department is proudly one of the few in the state to be a member of Police Assisted Addiction & Recovery Initiative (PARRI), an organization that provides support and resources to help law enforcement by creating non-arrest pathways to treatment and recovery.
In Brattleboro, officers work actively with Project CARE (Community Approach to Recovery and Engagement), a partnership that was formed in response to the opioid crisis and championed by the previous chief.
The mission is to reduce the impact that substance use is having on the community and connect people living with addiction to treatment.
“We identify the problem, determine the barriers in place, and come up with solutions,” Hardy says.
Current partners include HCRS (Health Care & Rehabilitation Services), Turning Point of Windham County (which offers a day program for people in recovery), Groundworks Collaborative, the state Department of Correction Probation and Parole office, Brattleboro Consolidated Treatment Center (methadone clinic), and the Brattleboro Fire Department/EMS.
BRAT (the Brattleboro Resource Assistance Team), created under Hardy’s leadership, is also dedicated to providing assistance to the homeless population and downtown businesses alike. Dressed in their distinctive uniforms, these officers do everything from walking people to their cars after a movie to finding rehab opportunities to those who are seeking help.
Hardy touts the trust that Justin Johnston, the community resource specialist, has built from his experience living in recovery. He’s there to help people access everything from getting proper identification to arranging rides to treatment.
Johnston works out of the town’s new substation in the Transportation Center, which is designed to increase safety in the high-traffic area. The center hosts BRAT, a social worker, parking enforcement, and a public bathroom. Hardy fought hard along with other town leaders for the funding to get this in place.
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Officers respond to all kinds of domestic issues, to issues of homelessness and the mental illness, to violence and misunderstandings. Hardy’s goal has been to encourage training and preparation so that incidents can be handled fairly and discretely, if not always peacefully.
Her daily responsibilities, and those of any good police chief, are not always obvious, as so much has to do with communication. She sees that constant communication with her staff, officers, citizens, and journalists as key to her work.
There is always a tension between transparency, public reporting and the discretion needed to protect individuals and families. Nonetheless, the police have faced intense public criticism for the way Hank Poitras, aka “Planet Hank,” has covered incidents in town. Hardy has had to allow everyone’s rights to the same information for the sake of transparency and the First Amendment.
Discretion and privacy have been Hardy’s key to developing trust. She welcomes those who seek more information and has also felt it her duty to keep the town and Selectboard informed, even if the information she has to share is not as rosy as we would want it to be.
She has openly and regularly reported on the guns and drugs found in Brattleboro so that the public and town leadership understand the needs and challenges the police face. Her team has made clear to drug dealers they are not welcome.
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When asked about the challenges she has faced and her reasons for leaving, Hardy is quick to respond that she is ready to have some time to relax and spend time with family and that the department is in a good place.
She has full confidence in the new chief, Jeremy Evans, and in Captain Adam Petlock, and she believes it is a good time for a transition. She also asserts proudly that she will miss the team (and they her) and she will miss Brattleboro.
Looking back, the chief struggles to look beyond the criticisms that have taken her time and energy and that have affected her own morale. She is forthright about the struggle she has asserting she is “both black and blue,” and yet she smiles as she looks up and down Main Street where few are strangers and so many express how sorry they are to see her go.
As I bid her farewell, I think of the words of Rudyard Kipling: “If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, / If you can trust yourself when all then doubt you, / But make allowance for their doubting too.”
It has not always been easy, but Hardy has travelled our streets and left us all safer for it.
I will not be alone in missing her hearty laugh and the way she brushes off worries. She leaves us with pride, celebrating the team she has forged to protect our town.
Farewell and be well, Chief Norma Hardy, and thank you.
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A farewell party for Chief Norma Hardy takes place at the Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St., Brattleboro, on Saturday, March 28, from 2 to 4 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.
“This gathering mirrors the welcome event Brooks held for her when she first arrived in town, giving the community another opportunity to connect with the chief and wish her well in her future endeavors,” library staff said in the public invitation.
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